George Pelecanos - Firing offence

“Who’s opening?”

“The Deaf Pedestrians. Pedestrian describes ’em.”

“I’m looking for the little brother of a friend,” I said, pulling out the shaven picture of Broda and sliding it in front of her. “I think he hangs out with some of the skins here.”

“Fuckin’ skinheads,” she said viciously and looked at the photo. “I don’t know him. But you might ask those assholes.” She pointed out the entranceway towards the stairwell, where two head-shaven boys were leaning against the wall smoking cigarettes. “They’re always here.”

“Maybe later. How about another shot?”

She poured one for me and moved down the bar to take an order. The place was getting denser and smokier. I had a warm, even buzz.

The DJ was playing something hard and fast. The bartender sauntered in my direction and leaned in towards me, her forearms resting on the mahogany bar. There was color now on her cheeks.

“Anything else?”

“No, thanks. Cash me out.” She pulled my tab from between two rum bottles on the call rack.

“Nine dollars,” she said.

I put thirteen down on the bar. “See you later, hear?”

“Sure. I’ve seen you around.”

I grabbed my jacket off the wall and walked out into the hallway. The two skins were heading down into the narrow stairwell that led to the john and cloakroom. They were of average size and both wearing black jeans and black, steel-toed workboots. One had on a flannel shirt, the other a black T-shirt. I followed them into the stairwell. The DJ had kicked in Sonic Youth’s “Teenage Riot.”

I said, “Hey,” and they turned, four steps down, to face me.

They looked smaller and more vulnerable now. The one wearing the flannel shirt had eyelids at half-mast and his mouth hung open. The other had pale, girlishly veinless arms that hung like strings from the sleeves of his T-shirt. Both were trying to look tough, but I recognized them for what they were-pussies with crewcuts.

“You guys mind if I ask you a couple of questions?” I used the friendliest tone I could stomach.

“You a cop?” the one closest to me asked, but before I could answer his friend spoke up.

“He’s no cop. Cops don’t get black eyes.” They both laughed drunkenly.

“I’m looking for my little brother,” I said, pulling a twenty from my pocket along with the photo of Jimmy Broda. I kept the bill and handed them the picture. They stared at it rather stupidly for a long while.

“What’s this dude’s name?” flannel-shirt finally asked.

“Jimmy Broda.”

“The picture"3"›?e pictus not too good,” he said, quickly adding, “but I seen him around.”

“Recently?” He looked at his friend, then at the jacket pocket where I had replaced the Jackson.

“All this talk is making me thirsty, big brother.”

“You’re covered on the twenty,” I said. “Go ahead.”

“I think I know who the dude is, if it’s the one I’m thinking of. He runs with a guy they call Redman, you know, this redheaded motherfucker.”

“Yeah?”

“And sometimes I seen him with this good lookin’ older bitch. But it might be that she hangs out with Redman.”

“This Redman got a real name, or the girl?”

“I don’t know his name or hers,” he said, disappointed but still hungry.

“When’s the last time you saw him or his friends?”

“It’s been awhile. I don’t know, a few weeks maybe.”

“Would they hang out anywhere else?”

“No, man,” he said, “this is it now. This place is happenin’, even though there’s too many niggers come in here for my taste.” His friend chuckled uneasily.

“Who else would know more?” I asked, revealing the twenty once again.

“We know all the skins, man,” he said defensively. “You know that graffiti-you can see it on the Red Line near Fort Totten-says ‘United Skinheads’ over an American flag?” I nodded that I had seen it. “I did that.”

“That’s a nice piece of work. But there must be somebody else I can talk to who might know a little more.”

He looked at his friend, then at me. “It will cost you another ten.”

I pulled out the bill and slapped it together with the twenty.

“There’s a rowhouse on Ninth and G, Southeast, got a red awning over the porch. The dude you want to talk to is John Heidel. But don’t tell him we turned you on to the address.” I handed him the thirty, and he eyed me suspiciously. “You sure you’re no cop?”

I looked him over and said, “If I was, I would have called for backup by now.”

“Damn straight,” he said, missing the irony and walking, with his friend, down the stairs to hang out in the cloakroom.

I followed them down but veered off into the men’s toilet. I stood at the urinal and drained, reading the names of bands and slogans etched into the black walls.

Below an anarchy symbol, two words were dug deep into the heart of the plaster. “No Future.” I buttoned up my fly and flushed the head.

The red-awninged rowhouse stood in the middle of G between Ninth and Tenth, just as flannel-shirt had said. I parked in front of it the next morning somewhere around eleven o’clock.

Real estate salesmen pitched this area as Capitol Hill, and it was, though a far cry from the connotations that such a prestigious name would suggest. There were residential homes here, struggling group houses, neighborhood bars and shops, and a few marginally upscale businesses that quickly came and went.

I opened a chain-link gate and stepped along a concrete walkway split and overgrown with weeds and clover. A mongrel shepherd in the adjacent yard was on the end of its tether, up on its hind legs and growling viciously.

I stepped up onto a small porch with brown brick columns and knocked on a thin wooden door. A dirgelike bass insinuated itself through the walls of the house.

I knocked again. The door swung open and a girl stood before me. She was taller than me, even allowing for the fact that she was up a step. Her legs were long and her hips immaturely narrow. Through the sides of her green tank top I could see the curvature and bottom-fold of narrow, sausagelike breasts. Her tired eyes bore the mark of experience, though her childlike bone structure put her at around seventeen.

“I’m looking for John,” I said. “Is he in?”

Leaning in the doorframe, she looked behind her, then back at me, and said, “Which one?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know there was more than one. John Heidel.”

“There’s a lot of people live here, man, on and off. Johnny’s in his room, upstairs and through the second door on the left.”

I thanked her, but she was already walking away. The sound of several loud male voices came from the kitchen, where she was heading. From the mismatched, worn furniture in the living room to the requisite black and white television with foil antenna, the place resembled a student group house without the books.

I grabbed the loose wooden banister and took the steps slowly. At the top of the stairs I passed a room where a kid sat in the window box smoking. He didn’t return my nod.

My knock on the second door was hard enough to open it halfway. A young man lay on his back on an unmade bed, reading a paperback. Smoke rose slowly from behind the book. An emotionless voice told me to “come on in.”

He lowered the book and, squinting from the smoke of the cigarette that was planted in his mouth, cocked one eyebrow as he sized me up. He sat up on the edge of the bed and butted the weed in an overflowing ashtray set next to a radial alarm clock. From the looks of his wrinkled jeans, this would be the first time he had risen from the bed that day. His shirtless upper body was thick and naturally strong, without the artificial bulk obtained fro ^theant time hem weight machines, and there was a crescent scar half-framing his right eye.